Saturday's Passover shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, just north of San Diego, was only the latest in a rising spate of Rightwing extremist hate crimes --- rising even over the past week alone! --- as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We're joined today by NBC 7 San Diego reporterRAMON GALINDO, who spent the weekend covering the shooting at Chabad of Poway, which took the life of 60-year old Lori Gilbert-Kay and injured three others, including the congregation's Rabbi, after a 19-year old armed with a military-style assault rifle opened fire during Shabbat services. The alleged shooter, who was arrested while fleeing, is said to have been inspired by both the recent attack on two Muslim mosques in New Zealand, where 50 were killed, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh which killed 11 worshipers exactly 6 months ago.

The shooter at Chabad, who posted a "manifesto" just prior to the attempted massacre, is also said to have been responsible for an incident of arson at a nearby Muslim mosque in late March, according to Galindo who broke the story of that fire for NBC San Diego last month. In addition to bringing us up to the latest, including charges that have now been filed, Galindo offers insight on a number of the heroes in the story who he spoke with over the weekend, including both Gilbert-Kay and Oscar Stewart, an Iraq vet and congregant who reportedly ran toward the shooter to stop him as others were fleeing. It was, in fact, a good guy WITHOUT a gun who appears to have prevented far more carnage, though an armed Border Patrol officer at the service reportedly fired shots at the shooter's car as he was speeding away.

We've got a lot to unpack on all of this today, with both Galindo and listeners who call in with their own thoughts and reactions to the shooting (including one woman who lives in the neighborhood), the White House response (denying Donald Trump's obvious responsibility in helping to hasten the rise of white supremacists and other rightwing extremists) and even some thoughts on the Obama Administration's willingness to fold to reactionaries on Fox 'News' and in the Republican Party by withdrawing his own Dept. of Homeland Security's dire draft report [PDF] on the dangerous rise of lone wolf rightwing domestic terrorism in April of 2009.

That (shamefully) withdrawn report stated: "DHS has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy --- separate from any formalized group.” (No such fury was issued by the right after a similar report on the dangers of leftwing extremism was issued before it. Both reports were begun during the George W. Bush Administration. Moreover, as Daily Beast reported earlier this month, the Trump Administration has been disbanding DHS efforts to work with state and local officials on issues of white supremacy and domestic terrorism.)

We also talk with Galindo about the editorial decision by some in the media to not share --- or, at least, over use --- the suspects name and why neither of us did so today. As noted, there is much to discuss on today's program...

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On today's BradCast: Our coverage continues of Wednesday's bloodbath at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 were killed and 13 remain hospitalized today, following the nation's most deadly school shooting since Newton, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

We have many more new details today about the alleged shooter, a 19-year old former student who is said to have legally purchased the semi-automatic AR-15 military-style assault weapon and arsenal of ammo and magazines to go with it. (A photo of his collection, reportedly from one of his Instagram pages, is above.) State law enforcement officials reportedly say, late today, that the previously expelled and recently orphaned student, Nikolas Cruz, has now confessed to the mass shooting.

The predictable fight between gun safety proponents and those opposed to any such measures got underway in full today, as Republicans from President Donald Trump to Florida Gov. Rick Scott to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio went out of their way to avoid discussion of guns and deflect from the need to take action on the nation's continuing gun violence epidemic. They chose instead to declare the need for mental health reform as the only way to prevent the "true evil" behind such massacres, while spreading some of the blame to victims who, they claim, failed to alert authorities to earlier concerns about the shooter.

That charge, as we discuss, appears disingenuous at best, even as news breaks today that Cruz appears to have been associated with and/or trained by a white supremacist organization in the Sunshine State. (Over the past year, Trump has both signed legislation to make it easier for the mentally ill to purchase weapons like the one used in Parkland, Florida, and has cut funding to research and combat of domestic white supremacist violence.)

By way of contrast to the uniform GOP denial and misdirection, Broward County School District Superintendent Robert Runcie offered a plea on behalf of Stoneman Douglas High School students who are demanding real action in response to gun violence in the wake of their Valentine's Day nightmare. "I hope we can get it done in this generation," he said at a news conference today, flanked by two of the National Rifle Association's top benefactors in Florida, Gov. Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi. "But if we don't, they will," he vowed.

We're joined to discuss all of the above, including the stranglehold that the terror-enabling NRA continues to have over Republicans from D.C. all the way to state and local governments, by WENDY WHEATCROFT, Group Leader of the San Diego Chapter of Moms Demand Action on Gun Sense. Wheatcroft, a former elementary school teacher, explains that she has lived through active shooter lockdowns herself, and charges that "the NRA has been infiltrating local government for years. Not just local government offices, but school boards, water boards, every lower level of government. They have been infiltrating and pushing out these talking points."

She details her own group's efforts to enact common sense gun reform, such as "red flag" laws that were adopted in California, to enable "family members or police to remove weapons from someone they deem to be a threat to themselves or others."

"There is no such thing as 'too soon' to talk about gun violence," Wheatcroft argues. "These shootings are compounding, one upon the other upon the other, so when is the time? It's too late for those families --- it's too late for those moms whose kids did not come home from school on Valentine's Day. Can you imagine?," she asks tearfully.

She also speaks to how gun safety proponents can take on the NRA (who "will say and do anything possible to sell their guns and make money"), and cites removing NRA-supported elected officials from office as the most effective weapon for doing that. "It's just so important for us, in every city, to buckle down locally and to make sure that we are supporting candidates who do not share this narrative and this message."

"Right now, our House is dominated by legislators who have been bought by the NRA," Wheatcroft says. "Gun Sense candidates aren't just Dems. It's not enough to just be a Dem anymore. We need people who are champions for gun violence prevention, and who will outspoken and unafraid to speak out and stand up to the NRA."

"We are not trying to take anyone's guns away. We are not here to ban the 2nd Amendment. We are here to help put in place gun safety measures that enable gun owners to maintain their rights, and to keep their guns, while also keeping people safe from guns."

Finally, we close today with a look back at how U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led the successful 2013 GOP effort to block majority-supported passage of any and all bi-partisan gun safety legislation brought to the Senate floor for a vote, just months after the nation's deadliest school shooting in Newtown, CT...

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Among the stories covered on today's BradCast...with no small amount of gusto and an occasional comedic turn in an otherwise dark (and smokey) world...

Devastating wildfires spread down the Southern California coast toward San Diego, in a record wildfire season that has lasted all the way into winter, as predicted by scientists at least a decade ago. Alas, few heeded their warnings;

Clearly not heeding such warnings is Donald Trump who, according to a new AP analysis, is failing to appoint actual scientists to scores of Senate-confirmable, top scientific positions at multiple important federal agencies, from the EPA to the Energy Dept. to the White House itself;

The former Chair of the CO Republican Party turned rightwing radio host, Steve Curtis, had claimed before last year's election that "virtually every case of voter fraud I can remember in my lifetime was committed by Democrats." Well, he was proven wrong in court this week as he, himself, is found guilty of....you guessed it. (His failed excuse for it is equally astonishing.)

And, speaking of...on the eve of Tuesday's much-watched U.S. Senate special election in Alabama, multi-partisan Election Integrity advocates file suit to force the state to retain "ballot images" from the state's paper ballot digital-scanners. New York Daily News' Editorial Board joins them in that call...for very good reason. (My interview several days ago with the longtime election integrity champ, John Brakey, who helped organize the lawsuit and effort, is right here.)

After a spate of mass shootings, Congress finally moves some gun legislation forward, as Republicans in the U.S. House do the bidding of their terrorist-enabling NRA masters in passing a bill to expand the right to carry concealed deadly weapons into states whose laws prohibit it;

And, finally today, we end with some listener e-mail on a few of the topics we've covered on recent shows from guns to the Democratic Party to Trump/Russia...

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. Coast Guard planning for six feet of sea level rise by 2100; U.S. House Science Committee chairman pushes myth that climate change will be "beneficial"; Rome may go to water rationing amid serious drought; Oil companies sued over climate change; Hundreds of new panda-shaped Chinese solar farms; South Miami law mandates solar; PLUS: Environmental factors linked to serious decline in North American men's sperm counts... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Trump threatens to protect the environment if Alaska senators don’t back health care bill; Unusual weather phenomenon explains simultaneous eastern and western India flooding; AEP plans the largest onshore wind farm in the U.S in OK; CA's marine sanctuaries face new offshore drilling threat from Trump Admin; New massive plastic garbage patch found in Pacific Ocean; EPA to seek public comment on water rule repeal; Bundy follower gets 68 years in prison for role in armed NV standoff; New database shows myriad pollutants in U.S. water systems... PLUS: New diesel and petrol cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2040... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Republicans continue to pretend we don't face a gun violence epidemic in the U.S., that human-caused climate change isn't happening and that massive tax cuts help, rather harm, the economy and the middle class. They may need to pretend harder. [Audio link to full show is posted below.]

First up today, a number of multiple victim shootings that played out across America --- from San Diego to Topeka to Dallas --- in the past 24 hours, but received very little media coverage, for some strange reason. At the same time, on Saturday, hundreds of thousands turned out across the country for the People's Climate March --- nearly 200,000 of them in sweltering 90 degree heat (in late April!) in Washington D.C. alone. The latest mass demonstration against the Trump Administration's attempts to deny science and cut funding to climate-related programs came just hours after Trump's EPA began the removal of climate change-related facts and scientific data from its website.

And, all of that happened as Donald Trump's Presidency hit its first 100 days, a period marked by, among other things, a failure to pass any of the legislative goals announced during his campaign. In hopes of distracting from that failure to date, Trump's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (pictured above) released a hastily compiled one-page outline for what the White House describes as "The Biggest Individual And Business Tax Cut In American History."

But, as critics from the right, left and center, including my guest today, Dave Johnson, a Senior Fellow at the progressive Campaign for America's Future notes in response to Trump's proposal, bigger isn't necessarily better. In this case, the proposed cuts would actually hurt poor and middle-class Americans, Johnson explains, while defunding the very things that help boost the economy, serving as a huge gift to the very wealthy, and blowing a massive hole in the federal deficit to boot.

Johnson explains the "smokescreen of bamboozlement [and] propaganda" by Republicans for decades on these issues which, he argues, citing similar cuts and claims from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, have never "paid for themselves" as the Trump Administration is claiming once again. "How many times have they done this and the results have not come through?," Johnson rails, describing how even the Congressional Research Service, when asked by Republicans to create a report in 2012 looking back at tax cut data all the way back to 1945, found that "cutting taxes does not boost the economy."

Moreover, he notes, "corporate profits are at the highest ever right now," making it hard to justify Trump's proposed corporate tax cuts (from 39.5% to 15%) as anything more than an economic boost to a small handful of very wealthy investors. Cutting taxes, he argues, is meant for little more than enriching the already very rich and "forc[ing] cuts in government by forcing a crisis in budgeting."

"Democracy doesn't have an advertising agency, but all of these anti-government people do," Johnson tells me, in response to my questions about how GOPers are still able to continue arguing for something that has proven time and again to be little more than a myth, albeit one that many Americans still seem to fall for. We also discuss whether or not Congressional "Tea Party" Republicans will actually approve such a huge increase in the federal deficit, or if, as with attempts at health care reform, they, not Democrats, will be the real obstacle.

Finally today, more firings and fall-out announced at the Fox 'News' Channel, in response to the myriad and systemic sexual harassment complaints against its now-former creator Roger Ailes and its now-former top star Bill O'Reilly...

While we post The BradCast here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they're available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or our native RSS feed!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A very bad week for fossil fuels: Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline; Peabody Coal caught lying to the public about climate change; Exxon Mobil facing investigation for what it knew and when it knew it; PLUS: Second hurricane hits Yemen in one week and Sea World finally responds to critics... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

If you were looking for a fresh reminder as to why Vote-by-Mail is a terrible idea, why provisional ballots are not the same as actually casting a vote, and why there needs to be more accountability for and oversight of election officials, today's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio should fit the bill.

In short, we cover the election contest now pending in the race for City Council (Seat 1) in the San Diego County city of Chula Vista, CA. The certified results from the November 2014 election show a 2-vote margin between the John McCann (R) and Steve Padilla (D) in a race with some 37,000 ballots cast. McCann has been certified as the "winner".

Trouble is, according to the lawsuit [PDF], at least 15 mail-in and provisional ballots were rejected, even though the signatures on them matched the signatures from the voters' registrations on file. That, argues attorney John S. Moot (my guest this week, and a former Chula Vista City Council Member himself), is in violation of the law.

The other trouble is, those ballots were rejected by San Diego County Registrar Michael Vu, who was the infamous Election Director of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's most populist (and most Democratic) county during the 2004 Presidential election, when two of his immediate subordinates were indicted and found guilty of rigging the Presidential "recount" in Cuyahoga. Yes, if you didn't know or don't remember, there was a partial "recount" of that election, across the entire Buckeye State, as requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties. And, yes, it was found to have been rigged in a court of law.

Vu, who was protected at the time by the Republicans who ran the Cuyahoga Election Board, was never charged and was happily hired not long thereafter by San Diego County, where elections have been little more than a joke for many years, even before Vu got there.

For the full story on this, listen to this week's show and Moot's commentary on the suit he's filed on behalf of his client, a long-time poll worker and voter from Chula Vista.

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: CA Governor warns climate change is here, and getting very expensive; Biblical flooding in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia; Insurance Co. sues Chicago for failing to prepare for climate change; PLUS: India's new PM pledges solar across the nation... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record jump in carbon emissions on track for 5°C increase in world temps; US & China reach major climate agreement; Another court victory for Monsanto; PLUS: As California breaks new solar records, one of the state's old nuclear plant will now shut forever ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Today on my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show --- after breaking the news about the newly elected Pope --- I interviewed Eugene Iredale, attorney of the former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera who received a $100,000 settlement from Rightwing con-artist James O'Keefe last week. (Vera also received $50,000 from O'Keefe's former partner Hannah Giles in a separate settlement last summer.)

Vera's California Invasion of Privacy Act lawsuit, filed in 2010, stemmed from O'Keefe and Giles' surreptitious wiretapping of a "confidential" conversation with Vera. The conversation (during which Vera played along to learn about the duo's pretend plot to smuggle underage prostitutes into the country, so he could turn them in to law enforcement) was then deceptively edited for misleading use in the infamous ACORN "pimp" hoax tapes published by Andrew Breitbart and blatantly misreported by New York Times, et al.

Iredale discussed O'Keefe's illegalities at the center of the suit; why other ACORN workers hadn't similarly sued the three con-artists; why Breitbart was not included in Vera's suit; why he didn't also sue for defamation; whether these settlements can be seen as a "victory"; and much more.

P.S. I invited O'Keefe to join today's show to offer his side of the story (live and not deceptively edited), but last night he seems to have decided he didn't "have the guts" to show up.

* * *

Please support The BRAD BLOG's fiercely independent, award-winning coverage of your electoral system, as available from no other media outlet in the nation --- now in our TENTH YEAR! --- with a donation to help us keep going (Snail mail, more options here). If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details right here...

Pretend journalist and Republican activist Hannah Giles agreed to pay $50,000 to former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera as a part of a legal settlement struck last summer in response to an invasion of privacy lawsuit filed against her and her former partner James O'Keefe, Vera's attorney Eugene Iredale has confirmed to The BRAD BLOG.

O'Keefe and Giles' illicit taping of Vera was carried out as part of the deceptively edited series of hit videos released by the pair in 2009. The tapes were published, and paid for, by the late con-man Andrew Breitbart. Vera had been portrayed in the misleading video as having been willing to help the pair smuggle underage prostitutes into the United States across the Mexican border. In fact, Vera had played along with the duo's ridiculous proposed scheme only long enough to collect information from O'Keefe and Giles (and take their photographs), before contacting law enforcement immediately after the secretly video-taped meeting.

During the course of Vera's lawsuit, it was revealed that Breitbart, who died in March of 2012, had agreed to pay the pair some $120,000 for their hoax tapes in $5,000 monthly installments to each. O'Keefe ended up collecting $65,000 before he was terminated around the time of his CNN "Sex Boat" scandal in September of 2010. Giles' payments, on the other hand, were reduced from $5,000 month to $3,000 at some point, before being terminated for what she described, according to Vera's attorney, as "a conflict of visions".

Accordingly, Giles only ended up collecting $32,000 from Breitbart, but thanks to the settlement last Summer, she was forced to hand all of that, plus $18,000 more, over to Vera.

O'Keefe had attempted to fight for dismissal of Vera's July 2010 lawsuit but lost in court on every attempt to do so. While it took O'Keefe until this past week to see the writing on the wall and finally agree to settle with Vera, Giles was smart enough to settle her own part of the lawsuit with Vera last Summer. Giles' settlement agreement had been reported by Dave Maass of the San Diego City Beat at the time, but the conditions of that settlement and Giles' agreement to pay out $50,000 to the former ACORN worker had not been known.

Asked during his sworn deposition why he didn't attempt to confirm the false story given to him by Vera before publishing his videos tapes, O'Keefe, who still pretends to be a "journalist", explained: "I did want to follow up. I just didn't end up following up"...

Appearing on MSNBC's The Ed Show on Friday night, Eugene Iredale, the attorney for former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera, made short work of the chiseling claim made by federal criminal and professional liar James O'Keefe, that he had agreed to pay Vera $100,000 simply to bring to a close a "ridiculous lawsuit."

"If he wants to get out of the settlement and wants to fight us in court," Iredale told host Ed Schultz in response to O'Keefe's fundraising bluster, "we're ready any time. We can go right now!"

O'Keefe agreed last week to settle the lawsuit filed by Vera in July of 2010 against him and his partner Hannah Giles. Vera had been fired by ACORN after deceptively edited video tapes of him, secretly recorded by O'Keefe and his partner Hannah Giles, were published by Andrew Breitbart in 2009. While the edited tapes made it appear as though Vera, whose English is poor, was interested in cooperating in a scheme to smuggle underage prostitutes across the Mexican border, in reality, Vera had played along with the pair in order to gain information, including taking their photos, and then immediately notified law enforcement about the ridiculous scheme O'Keefe and Giles were proposing.

"Sadly, this is the cost of exposing the truth," he explained to his gullible fundraising base in a statement posted to his ironically named Project Veritas website late last week. "That's why so few people do it. There are liability issues inherent in undercover journalism."

Many of those paying attention to this long shameful saga would be right in responding in turn: "Um, what 'journalism'"?!

O'Keefe continued his post-settlement Twitter tantrum to describe media coverage of his settlement agreement as "lies and lies and more lies from journafascists," taunting them to "have the guts" to allow him to respond on TV.

The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman responded to O'Keefe in turn with an invitation to appear live with him on his KPFK/Pacfica Radio show this coming Wednesday, at which time he could, among other things, explain how deceptively edited videotapes deserve to be labeled "journalism" or why he describes Vera's complaint as "meritless accusations". O'Keefe has yet to respond to the invitation...

The case arises from the secret video taping by O'Keefe and Giles of then ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, as part of the deceptively edited hit videos the pair would later release on Breitbart's several propaganda websites. Vera was terminated after the release of the videos, despite having committed no wrongdoing --- he had even notified local police about the pair, after he suspected they were up to no good --- as confirmed in a detailed report by the California Attorney General last year. O'Keefe and Giles, on the other hand, as the CA AG found, most likely "violated state privacy laws." While they were given criminal immunity by the AG in exchange for the raw, unedited video tapes, they remain liable for civil violations of the that law.

Now it appears Breitbart himself may be pulled into the case, and we're likely to soon learn how much he paid O'Keefe and Giles for their hit tapes.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mitchell D. Dembin has adjudicated a discovery dispute by ordering both O'Keefe and Giles to disclose payments Breitbart made to them, as well as email communications and other relevant documents concerning the illicit video taping of Vera.

While that is likely to offer an interesting expansion of this story soon (and we'll offer a few more details from the court's ruling below), more than anything what caught our eye in this story for the moment, was the reporting by local journalist Heather Johnson of Courthouse News. She broke the story this week, and managed to actually report accurately on the details of O'Keefe and Giles' ACORN hoax.

So, to offer you (and, actually, the New York Times) an idea of what accurate reporting on O'Keefe --- a man who has, since his ACORN con, also pled guilty to a scheme involving an attempted wire-tap plot of a sitting U.S. Senator --- looks like, just read the first three grafs of Johnson's coverage this week...

Rightwing activists and propagandists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, employees of con-artist and propagandist Andrew Breitbart, may not use the First Amendment as an excuse for breaking the law in California, according to a federal judge's ruling this week.

Judge M. James Lorenz rejected the defendants' argument and motion for summary judgment in federal court, as part of the civil lawsuit filed against them by former San Diego ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera.

Giles had previously thrown O'Keefe under a bus by arguing that she should not be held accountable at all for violating California's Invasion of Privacy Act [CA Penal Code § 632], since he, not she, was actually wearing the hidden video camera used to secretly tape their conversations with Vera, even after they had asked if their meeting would be kept confidential.

For his part, O'Keefe, a convicted federal criminal, argued that he was allowed to violate the law because the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protected him as a "journalist". The judge ruled against the defendants on all points...